


Nothing In The World Is Single

by loves_books



Series: Nothing In The World Is Single [1]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e01 And the Moonbeams Kiss the Sea, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:26:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4009309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James has to admit he feels a little guilty, coming here without even mentioning it to Robbie. It’s been years now; nearly seven years, in fact, since the case where they had met Philip. A lot has changed in those seven years, for all of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing In The World Is Single

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Wendymr for her advice, though I have of course tinkered with this since she looked at it and any remaining errors are entirely mine.

James has to admit he feels a little guilty, coming here without even mentioning it to Robbie. He’d thought about it, thought about making an evening of it, with takeaway and beer on the way home. But he knows, in his heart, that even on the small chance that Robbie might have been interested, then he would have insisted on bringing Laura as well. Laura, who hadn’t met Philip, who wouldn’t understand the importance of this event. That wouldn’t have been right.

It’s been years now; nearly seven years, in fact, since the case where they had met Philip. A lot has changed in those seven years, for all of them. It’s entirely possible Robbie wouldn’t even remember the artist after all this time, or wouldn’t feel the same urge to come here tonight. And somehow it feels important to James that, if it can’t be him and Robbie together, then it should be just him. Alone. 

Not entirely alone, of course. In fact, there’s a surprisingly large turnout for what is, in all honesty, only one of a dozen student-teacher art shows in Oxford right now, and James finds himself shuffling sideways and sliding between many small groups of people talking and admiring the exhibits, all dressed in their finest with wine glasses held high.

Amongst the dinner jackets and elegant dresses, James feels underdressed and conspicuous, even more so than usual. He’s come here straight from work, wearing a dusty black suit, his shoes scuffed and muddy after a chase along the riverbanks earlier that day. He should’ve gone home to change, perhaps, but he knew that he might well have talked himself out of coming at all.

It really does feel important that he’s here, though few would understand why. James has struggled with his role in the police for years, has struggled with what exactly they do and the value of their work. He’s made his decision now, taken that promotion and committed his future to the job, but there still remain certain cases that have stayed with him, for both good and bad reasons. 

Philip hadn’t stayed with him, not particularly, but with all the changes in his life recently James has found himself looking back nostalgically over his earlier days with Robbie. Seeing the poster for this event had seemed almost too good to be true. A sign, of sorts.

‘People and Places’. That’s the overall theme, apparently, and the leaflet that one particularly over-eager student had pressed into James’s hand on entry tells him that each of the exhibiting artists have interpreted that broad theme in their own individual way.

There are some artists whose work clearly tends towards the more modern, the more impressionistic, and James moves quickly past their exhibits. Past the piles of painted tin cans and a wall covered with colourful graffiti, past something that looks like a video installation. He barely spares them a glance; if he has time, he may look at them before he leaves, but he is here for the work of one artist alone.

Philip Horton.

That one name had leaped out at James from the poster, not even the first name listed but the only one he had recognised immediately. A name that brought to mind the memory of an awkward yet brilliant young man, a man who had said he was no good at making things up but had shown how easily he could recreate any image he’d ever seen, even from a postcard or a photograph. An artist whose work James now recognises when a group of women in their finest dresses suddenly part in a wave in front of him.

As if in a dream, James drifts closer, ignoring a white-aproned student offering a glass of wine. There is a whole wall of the studio dedicated to what can only be Philip’s paintings and drawings, all beautiful and perfect, unmistakably his. Real life at their finest, in James’s humble and uneducated opinion.

He steps closer still, barely knowing which painting to look at first, his eyes dancing rapidly over the colours on display. The leaflet had told him Philip was focussing on ‘the people and places that made me what I am today’, and the irony of the subject isn’t lost on James. Straight away, glancing at some of the paintings, he feels he is almost right back where he stood nearly ten years ago.

The first painting he truly focusses on, the largest canvas of them all, is one incredibly familiar scene; James remembers a wall of nearly identical paintings, back in that student house all those years ago. The river, naturally, framed by distinctive, slightly overhanging trees. A view of three taller trees opposite, and a cloudy sky, the clouds James remembers Philip studying so hard, practising until he could get them just right. This is the way those clouds looked like on the day Philip painted them, and they will never look that way again. The thought makes him smile.

So vivid, so realistic – James is drawn deeper and deeper into the painting, and then deeper still, almost as if he is looking out of a window and could fall through at any given moment to find himself stood on the banks. He can almost see the river flowing rapidly, watch the clouds billowing by overhead. Birds could be singing, and the white-noise of background chatter in the studio could easily be the wind stirring the trees.

After what could have been minutes or hours, James manages to tear his gaze away and turn his attention to some of the smaller works on display. There are several scenes and portraits he doesn’t recognise at all, though one portrait of an older couple can only be of Philip’s parents. 

Others, though, James recognises immediately. One in particular seizes his attention the moment his eyes land on it, stealing his breath away, even though it’s relatively small, barely six inches square. Blonde hair and dancing eyes, a charming smile – James remembers well how Robbie had called her ‘lovely’, and Nell certainly looks lovely in Philip’s faithful portrait of her. She looks full of life, smiling out of the watercolour with no sign at all that she would lose her life far too young.

Swallowing down the unexpected rush of grief – another life lost too soon, another one they couldn’t save – James finds he recognises another pair of paintings, watercolours again, displayed side by side. The student house where Philip and Nell had lived, a distinct number 6 visible outside; the house Robbie and James had visited several times as their investigation had proceeded. And a laughing group of students, sprawled over two sofas, their faces blurred deliberately but still recognisable to James. Nell, of course, and James, Jane, Charles and Eric. Strange how these names have stayed with him, though James hasn’t thought of them in years.

Another river scene, a slightly different angle, and it takes James a second to realise just who he is actually looking at. Beautifully rendered in oils, a tall, slender man in a black suit is seated on a log beneath a tree, blond head bowed as he raises a cigarette to his lips. A glimpse of lavender socks is visible as the trousers ride up slightly.

“Do you mind?” A familiar voice breaks through James’s moment of shock, and he turns to see the artist himself standing by his side. “I thought afterwards, maybe I should have asked your permission, but I didn’t show your face so I didn’t ask. Do you mind?”

It takes James another moment to find his voice, stunned as he is to see himself on display like this. “Do I mind?” he repeats numbly, before shaking his head. “Not at all, no. I don’t mind. I’m surprised. I’m… I’m honoured.”

A half-smile from Philip, though he doesn’t meet James’s gaze directly. James remembers that from before, of course, that Philip hadn’t seemed comfortable with direct eye contact.

“That’s good,” the young artist says after a brief pause, eyes looking somewhere in the vicinity of James’s tie. He looks exactly the same as James remembers, barely seeming to have aged at all, and clearly slightly uncomfortable in his dinner jacket and bow tie. 

“Can I ask… Why me?” James truly is honoured to be depicted here, beside Philip’s family and friends, but he is confused. A portrait of him and Robbie together, perhaps, or a drawing of the police station where Philip had helped them solve the whole case. But why just James, alone, and why that particular moment?

“Because you talked to me. It was nice. Nell used to talk to me.” Philip’s reply is so calm, so matter-of-fact that James doesn’t quite know how to respond.

“It’s a lovely picture,” he says eventually, turning back to the wall of art. “Thank you. But you aren’t a student any longer, are you? Do you work for the college now?”

From the corner of his eye, he sees Philip nod, the half-smile becoming something more defined. “I’m not a student, no. I graduated. I spend my mornings painting from nine o’clock until twelve o’clock, and then I teach painting and art history from one o’clock until five o’clock, and then I paint again in the evenings unless I have to go to a show. Like this one.”

James is relieved, perhaps more than he feels is justified, in the circumstances. He’d wondered how Philip could possibly have survived in the ‘real world’. The young man he and Robbie had met all those years ago had seemed so vulnerable, and James had feared others might have taken advantage of Philip in any number of ways. He always sees the bad side of people in his job, can’t help but imagine the worst case scenario, though he tries hard not to.

“That sounds good.”

“I think it is good,” comes the predictably literal response, and James finds himself smiling widely as Philip moves to stand by his side, both of them staring straight ahead now at the display of artworks. The more James looks, the more there are that he can recognise – scenes from the streets and colleges of Oxford, mostly, in a series of delicate line-drawings, and another one of a room in what he knows to be the Ashmolean museum. A room filled with painting after painting of clouds – a painting of paintings, in fact.

“Are you happy, Philip?” He regrets asking the question the moment it slips from his lips, but before James can retract it, the man beside him has already started to answer.

“I think I am.” James glances sideways to see Philip looking intently at the portrait of Nell. “I get to paint whatever I want, and when I’m not painting I get to talk about painting and about art. I think that all makes me happy.”

There can only be one reply to that. “I’m glad.”

“Me too. Are you happy, Sergeant Hathaway?”

“It’s Inspector, now,” James corrects Philip automatically, wincing as he hears himself speak. “But please, call me James.”

“That wouldn’t be right, Inspector Hathaway.” Philip pauses, frowning slightly. “I think I should say congratulations, on your promotion?” James inclines his head in a nod of both agreement and thanks, and the frown vanishes as the other man continues. “So, are you happy, Inspector?”

“I think… I…” James wants to say yes, but it feels wrong to lie to this man, and it would be at least a partial lie. He’s not unhappy, which is something. There’s also no way to answer such an enormous question succinctly, so instead he tries for distraction. “I think you’re very lucky, Philip.”

The artist either choses to let him get away with the change of direction, or, far more likely, he doesn’t realise. “I think so too,” Philip replies, before turning to face James and sticking out one hand to shake, almost as if he’s been told this is something he has to do and had forgotten earlier. “Thank you for coming, Inspector.”

James shakes the proffered hand briefly – a good, firm handshake, surprisingly, if slightly damp with nervous sweat. “It was entirely my pleasure,” he tells Philip honestly. “Your art work is exceptionally beautiful.”

Before Philip can formulate a response, a group of younger men and women – who can only be students, possibly among those taught by Philip himself – suddenly crowd around the two of them. James finds himself pushed back slightly as they ask ‘Professor Horton’ to weigh in on a debate about the value of modern art in a classical world, or classical art in a modern world, or something similar James doesn’t even pretend to understand. Art isn’t his strongest subject, not by a long way.

He steps back and away a fraction, glad enough to give them their space. He watches them all for a moment, his policeman’s eyes noticing the way the students are careful not to intrude on Philip’s personal space too much, and the way they so clearly respect both the artist and his opinions. Philip does seem truly happy, and James finds that makes him feel happy too, even if he can’t say the same about his own life.

He turns back to the wall of Philip’s pictures one last time, even as more guests start to circle closer, eager to look their fill. They truly are beautiful paintings, each one different from the next yet all so clearly from the same talented hand.

Seeing himself featured there is still surreal, and James finds his eyes are constantly drawn back to the seated figure with bowed head, before they skitter away again. ‘The people and places that made me what I am today’ – the undeniable implication is that James has had an influence on Philip’s life, just by talking to him that afternoon.

All the little things matter, James thinks as he turns to leave. The things he does without really thinking, the actions or inactions he considers to be entirely unimportant. Any one of those could matter to someone, could influence them in a way he never intended or realised.

For a moment, the weight of that feels almost too much to bear, but then, with a deep breath, James feels suddenly lighter. He doesn’t stop to look at the other artists’ work as he leaves the exhibition; he’s seen all he needed to see, and his mind is strangely calm, knowing Philip is still painting and is happy in his life. Knowing James has made a difference to someone, somewhere, though he might never have realised it at the time.

That fact, alone, reassures him that perhaps he’s made the right decisions in his life after all, and somehow makes everything else worthwhile.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from 'Love's Philosophy' by Percy Bysshe Shelley.


End file.
